A Shared Pain
by Guyver Prime
Summary: Set immediatly after Children of Earth, when Captain Jack Harkness runs away, the only man who can bring him back is the only man who can understand the pain, the pain they both share.


Hello there! So, this little idea began in my mind after watching the awesome Children of Earth. The idea of what happened to Jack after he ran away. Also I hereby disclaim, I own nothing.

So, alons-y!

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Up into the skies above Cardiff, out of the Planet Earths' atmosphere and beyond to the very edge of the solar system lay the Ion Reefs. Where majestic shoals of flaming gases combining in a symphony of colour, bled out into shimmering corals of silver and blue. All a stark contrast to the very dull grey cruiser that drifted along, its cold fusion reactor pushing it effortlessly through space. Deep inside the ships cargo bay the silence matched that of the airless void outside, with just the glimmer of lights from a small console by the doors leading in providing illumination.

At a fixed point in the rooms centre, the molecules of the air shifted, parting as they allowed a bright white light to appear, flooding the bay with luminescence before dissipating into nothing. The only evidence of the occurrence was the man standing there in its wake, his right hand moving away from the teleport-device strapped to his left wrist. Captain Jack Harkness looked up, his mouth open, closing his teary eyes his breath trembled out the words he'd been unable to say seconds ago…

"Goodbye Gwen."

He simply stood in silence, listening to the occasional groan from the ship. He decided, from the sound of the creaking hull that this cruiser wasn't as modern as he had thought. Although for a man from the 51st century, who had travelled throughout time and space, had been alive for thousands of years, died countless times and seen many wondrous and evil things, the concept of what was in fact modern sometimes got a little confusing. Although he had to admit, watching the people of Earth collectively wow in shock and awe over the invention of a computer you could fit in your house had amused Jack no end. He lowered his head and opened his eyes, the light from the door console drawing his attention and having no wish or need to explore a cargo bay, he took two steps towards the door… and then stopped.

It was so faint at first he hadn't heard it. But with that last creak, it had gotten loud enough to not only hear, but to distinguish the beautiful sweet melody perfectly.

_Glenn Miller… Moonlight Serenade?_

But it couldn't be… his mind was registering how different that last creak sounded as he slowly turned around. It wasn't like the heavy metal groaning as the ship lumbered forward.

It had sounded like a wooden door opening. Captain Jack turned and his face was a mixture of not just confusion, but the same unbridled joy he felt whenever he set eyes on the TARDIS.

Stepping through the threshold of the small wooden box and into the impossibly large interior, Jack smiled as he saw The Doctor laying on his back on the metal grate floor, looking up under the TARDIS' controls, the unmistakable sound of his sonic screwdriver hard at work as he tinkered and fiddled, small sparks popping gently.

"Jack, shut the door. The ships not gonna blow up but you know how much I hate a draft."

Unable to shake the confused cobwebs of shocked surprise from everything, Jack could only continue staring at his friend, the look of questioning etched upon his face. He watched as The Doctor surveyed his handiwork before sitting up, jumping to his feet and brushing himself down before holding up his sonic screwdriver vertically and activating it. With a small pulse of sound and the flicker of light from the top, the music stopped mid melody. Placing the device in his pocket, The Doctor looked at the Captain and smiled.

"What are you…" Jack began to ask.

"My number used to be ex-directory. Nobody had my number. Which is strange, really strange for someone who lives in a phone box. But now I think everyone has it. Like, for example, your friend Gwen." The Doctor explained at the high speed that Jack, as well as all the other companions the Time Lord had travelled with, had gotten used to.

"Gwen called you?"

"Weelll… Gwen called Martha who put her through to me. She did that about 2 minutes after you ran away. Smart girl that Gwen Cooper, because who better to find someone who's running away then someone who's always running?"

Jack smiled, love for his best friend flowing through him. As well as a small amount of almost proud annoyance. Of course, there was no way she'd simply let him run. Not his Gwen, not in a million years.

"So there I am, deep inside The Serenity Infernos of Flambraxiss 12 and wouldn't you know it, the phone rings "

"Always does when you're in the bath tub." Jack joked, he was trying to keep a cool façade, but knew it wouldn't last long.

"Gwen Cooper, calling to tell me about children. About aliens, government hit squads, the end of Torchwood, her Captain running away and…" The Doctor never finished, instead he trailed of as he saw Jacks tears stream down his face. "I'm sorry." The Doctor held out his arms and Captain Jack Harkness fell into the Time Lord's embrace, sobbing uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry."

As minutes passed, the silence of the moments where only broken by tears. The Doctors' eyes looked beyond Jack, he stretched his arm out and clicked his fingers. The TARDIS door closed, shutting out the cargo bay. Shutting out space. Shutting out time.

When it seemed Jack had wept all he could, The Doctor slowly pulled away from the comforting embrace. Jacks' eyes where red, still slightly teary but the broken man had regained himself a little.

"Right, lets go somewhere and have a nice little talk." The Doctor rushed round to the far side of the console, flipped switches, pushed buttons, turned knobs and then with one pull of a lever, the TARDIS came to life, it's majestic sound echoing out as it began to travel through time and space.

"Where… or when…" Jack began, but was once more interrupted by the Time Lord.

"Where is a surprise and as for when, well, let's just get there first shall we?" The Doctor grinned. He had his usual wonderment about him but his prime concern was the man before him. The Captain was unwell, heartbroken, lost and in need of fixing and The Doctor was in.

A sudden jolt, one that made both men stumble for a second announced their arrival. The Doctor took his coat from it's resting place on the chair behind him and took off towards the door, hurrying past Jack.

"Well come on, you're gonna love the grass." With that, he opened the door and The Doctor stepped outside and disappeared from view.

Jack followed him outside and immediately gasped at the splendour of it all. The twin suns high up in the royal purple sky, the emerald green grass beneath his feet that seemed to stretch endlessly towards a horizon broken by the golden leaves on blue trees. It was wondrous yet seemingly odd in some way. Like it was not quite right.

"I know what you're thinking. Yeah it looks like someone misread a few things when doing the paint by numbers here but this Jack, is Beta Earth and it's the year 5,000,000,017."

"Beta Earth? There I was thinking you took all your first dates to New Earth." Jack cocked a knowing grin.

"Touché. Rose and Martha saw the after. This is the before. See, terraforming isn't always precise, sometimes it needs a little nip, tuck and a tweak to perfect it. This, is the practice model of New Earth. As you can see, it mostly worked."

"Mostly?" Jack asked, eyebrow raised.

"Paint by numbers. The atmosphere is fine, air to breathe, water and everything to sustain life but a few colours came out wrong. Plus the atoms and molecules in the air refract light as purple. Totally harmless but not what the people want. Blue skies all the way."

"Still beautiful."

"Oh yes. But one thing they perfected…" The Doctor kneeled down, pulled two blades of grass from the ground and handed one to Jack, who took it and watched as The Doctor sniffed and sighed, "apple grass."

Jack inhaled the succulent scent. It really was a wave of delicious apples, an entire orchard in one blade of grass.

"Rose told me but I never imagined." Jack, feeling a sense of serenity he hadn't felt for a long time, removed his coat and gently lay it out on the grass before laying on top of it and looking up into the purple sky, breathing in the scent of the field around him.

The Doctor followed suit, laying top and tail with his head by Jacks' boots. Simply laying there, 20 minutes of silence passed before a word was spoken. As always, the silence was ended by the Time Lord.

"I ran from you Jack. Because you're wrong."

"I know that Doctor. I'm ok with it, we made our peace."

"You even made peace with the TARDIS. Even after it tried to shake you off, all the way to the end of time you two made up."

"I didn't think I would ever travel in her again after she did that. Heh. Thought she hated me."

"Being saved from someone who had violated, raped and made you into a device that facilitated the death of billions was always going to make you two friends again."

"Well I'm easily forgiven. It's the smile." Even though, Jack thought to himself, there's no smiling anymore.

"I wanted to say something to you before I ran." The Doctor admitted.

"What?" Jack sat up and looked towards his friend, who had sat up in turn and was starring into questioning eyes.

"I wanted to say sorry. I knew what had happened. That Rose had brought you back. That you could never die from that day. That you'd become a fixed point in time and space. I wanted to say I was sorry you had become that. But my gut instinct took over Jack, I ran from you because you where wrong, I ran despite how sorry I was."

"Why?"

"Fixed points in time and space are events that have to happen, must always happen. Think of them like blocks, foundation blocks, like foundation blocks of things to come."

"You mean that they lay the path for the future."

"Exactly. These moments can be miniscule events that happen in a second or massive occurrences that last years and forever alter the course of history into what it should be. You've lived some Jack, World War Two for example."

"For the Earth as we know it to exist…"

"The world had to erupt in war. The titanic had to sink, the first moon landing, well the real one anyway… all fixed moments that had to happen."

"With a few predestination paradoxes here and there…"

The Doctor raised one eyebrow, "Why Captain, what ever do you mean?"

"These events happen like you say but I have a feeling someone might have been in the vicinity."

"Jack, are you implying I'm around whenever these events transpire?"

"Yes."

"Well, Sunday 2nd of September 1666... I was in Pudding Lane at the time."

"The great fire of London?!"

"I didn't start it! It was overloading Terileptil weaponry… they destroyed my sonic screwdriver." The Doctor looked mournful.

"But those are moments Doctor, I'm not a moment I'm a living person."

"A living person set in stone…" The Doctor saw Jack out the corner of his eye wince, "Oh yeah, concrete cell, sorry."

"It's ok, was slightly more enjoyable than being blown up. Ever been blown up?" Jack casually asked.

"Hmmm… I've fallen from a radio telescope control tower, that hurt… radiation, always uncomfortable… been shot, you know how much fun that one is and I've absorbed the energy of the time vortex. So no, I haven't been blown up. Yet. Here's hoping against."

"It really tickles. But why Doctor, why did you want to say sorry? Sorry for what?"

"You had become someone who would live an endless life. From then on you would meet people, they'd get close to you and then, they'd move on, leave you, die… and break your heart." The realisation of what The Doctor was saying dawned upon Captain Jack Harkness before The Doctor even finished. "I wanted to say sorry because I know that pain Jack. Because the closest thing to someone like you… is a Time Lord."

Jack felt it all come to him at once… all the loss…

_His comrades, brothers, during the wars…_

_The women and men he had loved and lost…_

_His wife…_

_Suzie…_

_Owen…_

_Toshiko…_

_Steven…_

_The other losses he had suffered… his brother Gray… anybody he had been unable to save… there was even when he saw the list of those who had died at the Battle of Canary Wharf…_

_Rose Tyler…. Jack had fallen to his knees and cried that day. His beautiful Rose, the memory of her beaming smile, her Union Jack t-shirt… and she was gone._

_All those people he had embraced into his heart, his life, they had vanished one by one, leaving him…_

Words filled with loss, sorrow and sadness broke through the realisation of why The Doctor was so very sorry.

"The Curse of the Time Lord… is mine… and yours Jack… a shared pain."

Jack sat up to find the Doctor was slowly getting to his feet. Jack stood and the two men shared a knowing smile before embracing each other.

"I won't ask if it get's any easier," Jack whispered, "because I already know it doesn't. But thank you… and I'm sorry too."

"For?" The Doctor stepped back and picked his coat up, putting it on and adjusting his tie.

"Your… our pain."

"It's been a long time since someone has understood… well, since Christmas, not this Christmas, well your Christmas but it was Christmas." The Doctor registered Jacks bemused look, "Another Doctor, he was me but not me. Info-stamp fugue state with Cybermen…. Oh you had to be there."

"Sounds like a normal day for you."

"Your normal day is on Earth, with Torchwood, protecting people."

"Protect people? Protect people?! I couldn't protect Ianto! And I killed my own grandson! What kind of protector am I Doctor?"

"The same as I am Jack… you're the best you can be."

"It wasn't enough."

"It never is but we don't ever stop. You know how fantastic they are and how brilliant it becomes. You know that right now for them everything is changing. Torchwood is needed."

"My own flesh and blood… how do I…?"

"You don't. It won't ever go. But Gwen told me. You had no choice Jack. Sometimes, you don't have a choice, sometimes you go with the lesser of two evils."

"You've had to?"

"Pompeii AD 79. Volcano day."

"You erupted Mount Vesuvius?"

"It was that or have the Earth become the new Pyrovile home world."

"Why'd they need a new one?"

"Davros."

"Gotcha." Jack understood The Doctors' simple answer. Pyrovilia was stolen along with 26 other planets to form Davros' reality bomb inside the Medusa Cascade.

"It was volcano day or end of the world."

"For the greater good?" Jack asked.

"Basically. The volcano was always going to erupt but there where a few temporal tweaks before it did. It was generally frowned upon by my people to stop certain events completely, even if they're not fixed points. Although, there was even a time when I was charged by the Time Lords to make a change that would impact everything throughout the universe and the rest of time."

"What?" Jack was slightly dumbfounded. He hadn't known of Time Lords going to an extreme like that, although the only one he had ever met certainly had no problems acting to whatever extreme was necessary in a situation. "What where you to change?"

"It was foreseen by the Time Lords that a time would come when all life in the universe would be destroyed. To prevent that from ever happening, I was sent to prevent the creation of the Daleks."

Jack was shocked but also felt an anger towards his friend, "If you where allowed to make that change then why the hell didn't you?! Knowing what they where, what they'd done let alone what they've done since!"

"I could've wiped them out, removed Daleks from all eternity. All I had to do was connect two wires. I was that close Jack, one little act of genocide and that would've been it. All their evil undone."

"Then why Doctor? I know it would have been genocide but… in this instance… why didn't you do it?"

"Would you believe me if I told you it was for the good that would become of the Daleks existence?"

"Good?" Jack was beyond confused. There had been times when The Doctors logic had left him in the dark but this… "What possible good…?"

"Fear, Jack. Fear. Fear of the Daleks brought together planets, united even warring species under the banner of fear of extermination."

"The enemy of my enemy…" Jack quoted.

"This fear would have consequences throughout time. UNIT became a greater defence force due to their encounters with the Daleks, in the future human colonies will band together to become guardians against threats, one such group form a Time Agency."

Jack raised an eyebrow, "Oh yeah, I've heard of them, I hear they only enlisted the best lookers."

"Only the vainest."

"Modest."

"But still part of something that stemmed from a common fear. I believed that somehow, someway at some point in time something good would come from the Daleks. Maybe, in that one way, it did. Y'know we even signed a peace treaty with them."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope," The Doctor almost chuckled at the stunned look on his friends face, "Lady President Romana tried to usher in an era of peace. Seemed to even work for a time. As an almost peace offering we allowed them to execute a Time Lord."

"You let them exterminate one of you? Couldn't have been a friend I take it."

"The Master."

Jack grinned, "Good."

"But these things never last. The Master returned. Then, well, that's the funny thing about time. The Time Lords saw the Daleks destroying everything so to prevent that they sent me to stop their creation. Then they found out…"

"Didn't take it well I guess?"

"They declared war… and all of creation was at stake. The prophecy was being fulfilled."

"So by trying to undo what would happen, the first steps towards what would happen, happened."

"Wibbly wobbly time-y wimey."

"I love it when you get technical."

"Whole universe of 'what ifs…'. So much happened because I didn't act, good and bad. But then, regenerations later, for the sake of everything…"

The Doctor stepped up close to Jack Harkness and whispered into his ear… the Captains' eyes slowly grew wide as The Doctor told him a tale, before stepping back once more.

"I… I didn't… I mean I never thought that it was you who ended…"

"We do what we have to do."

Jack looked down at the ground, The Doctors' revelation making things seem so much clearer. He considered that maybe, to really get the dirt off his shoes, he was on the wrong Earth. He breathed in deeply, exhaling as he looked back up into the eyes of his friend and nodded.

"No matter the cost."

The Doctor smiled as he watched a new perspective dawn upon Captain Jack Harkness. He motioned towards the TARDIS.

"I can take you right to her. A second after she's hung up from me."

"You're never that precise." Jack smirked.

"You'll hurt her feelings." The Doctor spoke of The TARDIS, which Jack promptly walked over to and run his hand smoothly down one side. A gentle almost serene hum came from within the blue box.

"Oi, you, stop it!" The Doctor exclaimed.

Jack simply laughed and stepped inside before turning round and asking in a dirty tone, "Coming Doctor?"

The Doctor followed Jack inside, muttering, "Why do I always feel like I need to shower… oh breathe Jack…" The TARDIS door closed and within moments, disappeared into the time vortex.

***

"Thank you Martha, bye."

Gwen Cooper wiped away more tears as her husband Rhys wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close as he tried to comfort her. He felt his wife's pain but also frustration towards the man who had just vanished into thin air as he ran away.

_Damn you Jack bloody Harkness…_

He kissed his wife on the top of her head then ran a soothing hand on her head, running his fingers through her hair. He felt her sink into his embrace.

"What did she say love?"

"She'll try. She can't promise of course, he's not exactly an easy man to pin down. But he's the only one who can find Jack and hopefully make him see damn sense." Gwen pushed away from Rhys lightly and stood up straight, smiling the best she could under the circumstances. "Come on, it's bloody freezing. Home. I wanna just put me feet up. That and your baby is kickin'."

"Funny how when the little one is kickin' it's 'mine'." Rhys mused as he began to walk round from the front of the car, opening the passenger door to allow his wife in… but he was stopped.

Stopped by the same otherworldly sound that had stopped his wife dead in her tracks. Rhys couldn't describe the sound, a clunky, whooshing noise that was suddenly accompanied by something incredibly strange.

On the top of the hill, where they had no more than 10 minutes ago watched Jack teleport off into the stars, a blue wooden 1950s-style London police box slowly materialised. He looked down as he felt his hand held tightly by his wife, who looked on anxiously."

"Rhys, it's him! My god Rhys, it's him!"

"Him? Him who?"

"The Doctor!"

His eyes became even more fixated on the blue box. Wow. The Doctor. All the things he had heard… and he travelled in a blue box?

"Come on!!" Gwen yanked on his arm as she took off as fast as a heavily pregnant woman could up a hill.

As they ascended the wooden door of the Police Box opened and out stepped The Doctor, whom Gwen recognised from their call on the subwave network. The Doctor noticed them as they walked towards him, then he stepped out into the cold Cardiff night air and walked to meet them.

"Hello there, I'm The Doctor but then you know that already. You I know." He acknowledged Gwen with a nod, "You…" he regarded Rhys for a moment, "nope."

"Rhys. Her husband"

"And father to be it seems."

Rhys couldn't help but proudly place a hand on Gwen's' 'baby bump' as he liked to call it. Gwen chuckled, before lightly swatting his hand away.

"Got a lovely girl in there, oh she's gonna be beautiful. Gonna have Uncle Jack wrapped round her little finger"

"How'd you…" Rhys began to ask but Gwen interrupted.

"Have you met her?" She asked excitedly.

The Doctor simply grinned as Gwens' heart soared.

_A little girl…_

"Anyway! I picked up a stray on my travels, vain little thing, bit over amorous, needs a good home."

"Hey," a voice came from inside The TARDIS, "I may be vain but there's nothing little about me."

Captain Jack Harkness stepped out, walked from behind The Doctor to stand in front of Gwen. The weight of guilt still upon his shoulders but the smile on his face and the gleam in his eye showed renewed determination, a sense of purpose and the one thing that seemed lost forever only a short time ago. Hope.

Gwen stepped forward, punched him hard on the shoulder and then hugged him, holding on as if to plead for him not to leave again.

"I'm sorry. I'm here. I'm right here. For you. For Earth. For the memories of those we've lost."

Gwen stepped back and wiped a tear of happiness away as Rhys held his wifes hand once more.

"Can we really go now? Don't you space men feel the cold?" Rhys shivered.

"I've come back to Welsh complaining… I must be crazy." Jack turned and as he did he saw The Doctor walking back towards The TARDIS. "Doctor."

The Doctor turned and looked at Jack, his face showing the same seriousness it always did when he was about to travel off into the unknown alone.

"You don't have to say it Jack."

The Captain saluted, "Sir." and The Doctor smiled.

"It feels better. The pain."

"Our shared pain." Jack replied, feeling the burden lift once more, the load forever eased by the help of his friend.

The Doctor smiled, turned once more and stepped into The TARDIS, the door closing behind him.

A second later it reopened.

"Oh and Gwen, the reason I don't always come to save the world? It's not because I'm ashamed of the human race."

Gwens eyebrows raised in shock… _Oh god, had he seen the tape?…._

"It's because the people of Earth have the ability, the strength and the courage within to save themselves. And also, because they have Torchwood."

The door closed and with a symphony of fading blue and whooshing sounds, The TARDIS vanished.

Moments passed as the three stood there, a new era dawning upon them.

"We carry on." Gwen broke the silence.

"Because the end," Captain Jack Harkness spoke, as they all turned to go home, "is where we start from."

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Thanks for reading, please review and finally, to Mr David Tennant. Thank you. Thank you. You weren't just brilliant. You where fantastic!


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